Although there have been quite a few concert recordings of Kevin Coyne released over the years, each of these feels like a revelation to the great late Briton’s followers, but the double-CD package that saw the light of day just recently might be the most alluring of all. Titled “Shangri-La – Live In Bremen 1975 & 2001” and capturing the artist at different points of his solo career, it should make a nice companion piece to "Live At Rockpalast 1979" which was issued in 2019, as both of the albums feature legendary Zoot Money yet the new one also has Andy Summers, before THE POLICE, add his guitar trills to the former SIREN warbler’s voice.
Of course the same players were behind 1976’s on-stage document “Living Black And White” – only the first part of “Shangri-La” precedes it; and of course, this part – where Coyne delves into his then-fresh platter “Matching Head And Feet” and premiering several numbers from “Heartburn” that would be out in 1976 as well as delving into classic blues – was available on a half-official basis, but now the tapes are properly released, and paired with another live report, preserved for posterity three years before Kevin’s untimely passing. By then, he’d lived in Germany, so the previously unheard Bremen concert was effectively the veteran’s home-turf performance in which Coyne, for some reason, ignored the material off 2000’s “Room Full Of Fools” while digging into “Sugar Candy Taxi” from 1999 alongside such early cuts as “Araby” and “Cheat Me” that appealed to his longtime fans. Precious!
Shangri-La –
Live In Bremen 1975 & 2001
CD 1:
1. Going Down Slow
2. Eastbourne Ladies
3. Sunday Morning Sunrise
4. Strange Locomotion
5. Nobody’s Fault But Mine
6. Shangri-La
7. Poor Swine
8. Mummy
9. My Mother’s Eyes
10. Saviour
11. House On The Hill
12. One Fine Day
13. Ad Lib
14. Turpentine
15. Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door
16. Reelin’ And Rockin’
CD 2:
1. Gina’s Song
2. Cheat Me
3. Happy Little Fat Man
4. Araby
5. Must Be Love
6. Saviour
7. Karate King
8. Lunatic
9. My Wife’s Best Friend
10. Fat Girls
11. Schoolboy
